


Twenty Facts You Didn't Know About Harry Potter

by bellairestrella



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Consensual Infidelity, F/M, Heavy Angst, Minor Character Death, Overuse of italics, Post-Hogwarts, Sensuality, references to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-20
Updated: 2008-07-20
Packaged: 2020-01-11 09:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellairestrella/pseuds/bellairestrella
Summary: He knows that in the end he will lose her.





	Twenty Facts You Didn't Know About Harry Potter

One. He wonders why he had to be chosen, why he has to be the hero. He can't be everyone's savior, no matter how hard he tries.

He's fighting a losing war, he knows. He is nowhere close to being Voldemort's equal ( _sometimes love is not enough to destroy evil_ ). 

He never will be.

Two. After he realizes that the only way he can defeat Voldemort is by willingly accepting death, leaving life forever behind, his brain shuts down.

He's never felt so bloody scared as he does now. He's stupid and innocent and impulsive and aged beyond his years. He doesn't want to die ( _we're all too young_ ). He wants to experience all that life hasn't given him ( _happiness, love, acceptance, peace_ ). 

And he can't, he won't have that.

(He can't save the world at seventeen.)

He tries to form his hands into fists but they're shaking too much. Every part of him is screaming, every particle is trembling. This time he can't escape. Not like he had before ( _his will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death_ ). 

He will be his own downfall. ( _And he will be Voldemort's as well_.)

He's a dead man walking, and he can't run away.

Three. His eyes scream _Lily's_ , his face _James's_ – 

He doesn't know what his heart cries in answer.

Four. When he hears _dat's a pulse, Harry – I'b sure id is_ he forgets to breathe. Such a powerful wave of relief and happiness washes over him he's almost light-headed. 

He kicks himself later for not even thinking to check her pulse.

Five: He won't, can't, let anyone else die for him. _I must die_. It must end.

The words reverberate around him, making him feel strangely detached from everything.

His hands don't stop shaking after he says _I am about to die_. 

Six. He finds the strength to walk, to put one foot in front of another ( _to face his destiny_ but he doesn't, can't think in those terms) with his mum, his dad, Sirius and Remus by his side ( _all that he's lost, all that he's gained_ ). His movements are mechanical, disconnected. His heart is pounding so fast his lungs can't keep up with it and he stops taking air in ( _for only a minute yet it seems longer than that_ ). Time passes slowly for him, so slowly he doesn't even count the minutes, seconds down to his death. 

When he says _you weren't_ , he starts breathing again.

Seven. For the past seventeen years of his life he's been known only by his title that he doesn't deserve ( _The Boy Who Lived_ should have been _The Boy Who Should've Died_ ). As he hears his name, followed by those three words that define him and what he's done, he thinks about all the people who are _love and family and trust_ to him. Their faces flash by in his mind like blurred, fervent memories he can't hold onto. Ron's – _Hermione's_ –

(He can't picture Ginny's face. He couldn't, not even then.) 

Everything is still; everyone is waiting, watching for this moment. (Some with glee, others with trepidation.) He swallows past the invisible lump in his throat and feels his body thrum with a faint _something_ (it's not anticipation – it's acceptance).

A green flash of light, a fleeting thought of _please let this happen now, before I lose control_ –

Then he knows nothing.

Eight. Hermione's screams echo in him and all around him. He closes his eyes and bites his lip to hold back the cry that's trying to claw its way out of his throat ( _that is louder than Ron's_ ). _Get us out of here save her_ is his last frantic thought. He drowns out all sound, all feeling and focuses only on _Can't lose her again. Can't risk her life for my own_ (not now, not ever). 

It's not until he's digging Dobby's grave later that he lets a hoarse scream escape his mouth.

His efforts hadn't changed anything.

He knows that in the end he will lose her. 

Nine. The words _I love her like a sister_ taste bitter, forbidden and sour on his tongue. It's a lie he can't take back now – he can't be selfish.

(She's always inside his heart. Always. And he can't get out.)

Ten. Somehow he forces himself not to look away when she kisses Ron. His weak _Is this the moment?_ betrays nothing to them. He tries to swallow but his throat hurts and there's a burning ache in his heart that only she can ( _yet won't_ ) fill.

 _You're happy for them_ , he tries to drill the words into his brain, hoping they'll sink in. _It was meant to be like this. This is what you've always wanted – for them to be happy. Now you know where things stand_.

He's an expert at lying to himself.

(He almost believes his lies.)

Eleven. The first time he sees his father, laughing and arrogant and carefree, he wonders if he'll ever _be_ like that. Alive. Wild and free and reckless and foolish.

(The truth hurts so fucking much – but it doesn't make him love his father any less.)

Eventually he'll stop wondering and realize the truth –

He's too alive to die.

Twelve. He's not one to listen to indie music; he never has been. Yet somehow the loud, dizzying beat of The Fratellis and the soft, bluesy hum of The Cardigans comfort him more than Ginny ever could.

Thirteen. Sometime after the war he starts to play the drums. It's more cathartic than flying now and he finds that he _likes_ the sound of cymbals clanging and drumsticks crashing against the drums. The noise numbs the chaos in him. 

Other days he's a photographer in disguise, trusty digital camera in hand. He snaps pictures of everything all around him – the gentle curve of her mouth, the wild waving Ron does sometimes as a way of greeting, the majestic turrets of Hogwarts Castle. He never turns off his camera since there is so much to see, so much to capture, remember, even if they are fleeting.

Fourteen. He doesn't say that he loves Ginny. 

When you're in love, he thinks, you don't notice all the annoying stuff your beloved does, like drawing attention to you even though you _hate_ the spotlight and avoid it as much as possible, going with instinct instead of using their common sense most of the time, acting as if they know you best when they really don't, never attempting to understand you and disrespecting all your friends. All you ever notice is how beautiful they are, how they leave you breathless, how they are the very thing your heart craves for.

They're also the very thing that blinded you from the truth ( _until you saw it too late_ ).

He says _I'm in love with Ginny_ instead.

Fifteen. He hears _wretched useless boy_ and _arrogant just like his father_ in every part of his mind, seeping through his veins until he wants to scream and deny and rip every strand of his hair out ( _I mean something in this stupid insane world – I'm not like him, I'm not I'm not I'm not_ ) until he won't ( _can't_ ) feel anything anymore.

Sixteen. When he hears of their engagement, he swallows an invisible lump in his throat. Later at the wedding, he lifts his glass with a frozen smile on his face and toasts the bride and groom. 

_To Ron and Hermione_ , he says. _May you be happy forever_.

And he acts beautifully while his heart falls apart at the seams.

Seventeen. _We can't do this_ , She whispers against his mouth. _We can never be. This is wrong_. It's a weak argument, they both know it. They've gone too far with each other that they can't let go and never look back.

 _No_ , he replies, _this has never felt more right_.

She laughs dryly. _I should've known better than to argue with you. Somehow I always lose_.

 _As it should be_ , he says, and narrowly avoids a smack upside the head.

 _Do you regret this – I mean, us?_ He fumbles for the right words and halfway succeeds.

She entwines their fingers together. _I could never regret us_ , she says. 

He knows what she really means.

 _I could never regret you_.

Eighteen. Sometimes he wonders what his life would have been like if his parents had lived. He would be loved, happy, _normal_. He imagines having lots of siblings and showering them with presents on Christmas morning and hearing his mum and dad's laughter in the background –

And sometimes he stops wondering – it makes him want more than ever before for it to be _real_. 

He can't afford to long for what he will never have.

Nineteen. When he hears _you're a wizard, Harry_ he feels something shift into place, a long missing piece of himself that has now been found. _I belong somewhere_. 

He finds it hard to believe at first. He's read tales of monsters and magic and dashing heroes and daring adventures (whenever Dudley was busy somewhere else, of course) yet this astounds him. It sounds too wonderful to be true, and he's half tempted to pinch himself, convinced that this is all yet another dream and he will wake up any minute now to the sounds of Aunt Petunia's yelling, like he always does. 

When he finds out the truth, he pinches himself. 

And he realizes it was never meant to be a dream for him.

Twenty. Ron winks at him and says _you finally got your act together, I see. Now you and Ginny can go off into the sunset like all the heroes do with their brides and live sickeningly happily ever after_.

He laughs and pretends that he isn't broken.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the companion fic to "Twenty Facts You Didn't Know About Hermione Granger." I also put in more than twenty "facts" here.


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